First Portrait shots in years.

After finally getting a camera again, I pointed it at my lovely girlfriend to give it a go. I used the 55-200mm for this.

f/5.6, 1/320s, ISO 6400.

Happy with them, but are they too bright? What could I have done differently?

Would say yes...way to bright and cool imo. Beautiful smile and looks like she would be fun to shoot again. Warm it up a bit and adjust the brightness...I need a new monitor though
I think #2 is worth saving and adjusting.

Pricey wrote in post #18152163
f/5.6, 1/320s, ISO 6400.

What could I have done differently?

Heya,

Park it at 55mm and shoot at F5.6 and lower your shutter speed so that you can lower your ISO. ISO 6400 is really topping out that T4i, and that will start to really harm the color and quality of tones, like skin.

Shoot RAW, adjust white balance to be a little warmer, it's very cold temperature light here.

Light is very hard here, there are spectral highlights. Not sure if something was used to light these, there are catchlights, and the hard directional light makes me wonder if a HSS/TTL flash was employed? If flash was used, I'd dial FEC down so that it's at -1 or so, and use it only as fill.

Very best,

This is why I love this site.

Thank you both for the advice. I'm a bit rusty.

Also, no flash was used. The sun was shining through the trees.

Great start!

I suggest you take 100 pictures of her in different settings and look at them. She will get bored of the camera and you will learn a lot. As a result, you will begin to capture not only great variety but also more natural expressions and postures.

I have taken between 1000-2000 images of my wife...since last year . To be fair, I also test equipment and techniques with her (or the dogs if she isn't available), so it's not just portraits and family events.